This invention is directed toward a meat processing assembly and more specifically to improvements for the meat pump, the stuffing horn, the twister, the linker, and the conveyor.
Meat processing assemblies are known in the art and over the years improvements have been made to enhance speed and efficiency when making linked meat products. Despite these improvements, deficiencies still exist. For example, removing gears from a meat pump remains a difficult time consuming process. With the twister, the use of a seal is still susceptible to wear and does not maximize heat reduction. To adjust the linker for different products require separate linker heads. Finally, aligning the conveyor with the linker can be difficult particularly when the floor is uneven. Therefore, a need exists in the art for a meat processing assembly that addresses these deficiencies.
An object of the invention is to provide a pump that allows for the easy installation and removal of the gears.
Another object of the invention is to provide for the easy adjustment of the stuffing horn for different casing types.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide for the easy adjustment, installation, and removal of chains on a linker for use with different length sausages.
Another object of the invention is to provide a linker that maintains constant tension in the linking chains.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an adjustable chain spacing of a linker to eliminate backing plates, different sprocket sizes, and different shaft spacing.
A still further objective of the present invention is to provide an adjustable conveyor that may be fixed to a floor.
These and other objectives will be apparent to one of skill in the art based upon the following disclosure.